Anopheles intermedius
and
Anopheles mattogrossensis
are Brazilian anopheline species belonging to the scarcely studied Anopheles subgenus. Few studies have been done on the genetic differentiation of these species. Both species have been found infected by
Plasmodium and are sympatric with other anopheline species from the
Nyssorhynchus subgenus. Eighteen enzymatic loci were analyzed in larval specimens of
An. intermedius and
An. mattogrossensis aiming to estimate the variability and genetic differentiation between these species.
An. mattogrossensis population showed higher genetic variability (P = 44.4 and Ho = 0.081 ± 0.031) than that of
An. intermedius (P = 33.3 and Ho = 0.048 ± 0.021). Most analyzed loci showed genotypic frequencies according to Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, except for LAP1 and LAP2 in An. intermedius, and EST1 and PGM loci in
An. mattogrossensis. The genetic distance between these species (D = 0.683) was consistent with the inter-specific values reported for
Anopheles subgenus. We verified that the polymorphism and heterozygosity percentile values found in both species and compared to those in the literature, showed no relation between the level of isozyme variability and geographical distribution. The low variability found in these two species is probably more related to the niche they occupy than to their geographic distribution.
